If people with a potassium-containing saline substitute cook and season, they are less likely to suffer from heart complications and have a lower risk of death. This is shown by the cross-study analysis of a team led by Xuejun Yin from the Australian University of New South Wales. The group published their results in the journal »Heart«.
Adding a certain amount of potassium chloride to sodium chloride, the classic table salt, lowers blood pressure in the long run; not only because of the lower sodium intake, but also because potassium itself has hypotensive properties. So far, however, there has been a lack of solid evidence that "blood pressure salt" or "diet salt", as it is called in the trade, actually leads to fewer heart diseases. The new calculations of the Australian health researchers based on five studies with a total of 24,000 subjects showed that both the general risk of death and the probability of suffering a heart attack or stroke decreased by eleven percent. The diet salts used consisted of 25 to 65 percent of potassium chloride.
The majority of the data comes from a five-year study from China with 21,000 older and previous subjects. The rest of the experiments also included younger people and those without high blood pressure, which is why the heart -protecting effect of salt pods can also be transferred to other parts of the population, according to the research group. However, these attempts worked with far fewer subjects. Only people with hyperkalaemia, i.e. an increased potassium mirror, should do without the measure. Kidney diseases in particular are a risk factor for this.
The population of China consumes a particularly high amount of salt with an average of more than ten grams per day. But even in Germany, salt consumption of just under nine grams is significantly higher than the WHO recommendation of five grams. Excessive sodium intake is one of the main causes of hypertension, which kills 9.5 million people worldwide every year.
